You've been heard. Response re: 4.9 and Encryption
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I feel the same way as Walt Sterdan too. I fully respect those who are choosing to stop buying completely, but I feel that is one off guesture that fades away when new buyers come along. Consistently buying non-DRM products whilst ignoring the DRM stuff, sends a somewhat longer lasting message.
I just do 3-D for the fun of it, so I'm doing business as usual - until it isn't.
From my point of view, my beef is with Connect messing with my file layout.
For that reason alone, I won't even take a freebie that precludes manual installation.
Those who post here may be a small portion of the total, so those in favor of DRM appear to be as well. It's the people who don't post who will make a difference. Will they just quietly walk away, or will they lose their enthusiasm and purchase less as some of us here have? No one knows, which is why Daz is pushing. I doubt if Daz will ever figure out if DRM hurts or helps, and from the lack of engagement here regarding it, I don't think they care.
It's not just DRM that hurts customer enthusiasm, the way it was implemented and the attitude towards the customers here in the forums hurts Daz as well. But no one seems to care. As long as they address some issues and ignore others, we won't be too anxious to care, either.
I'm not talking about never buying anything else, just shrinking my purchasing and expanding it elsewhere.
This +1.
There are a lot of great things about Daz3d and the community, that is probably one reason that there has been such contention here.
It is so far away from what we have come to expect, it feels like a whole new company!
“How Can You Not Love This?” DAZ asks me sweetly on the store page.
"DRM, my dear," I reply, reluctant but determined.
Temptation is very strong, what with the Victoria7 Pro bundle at 80% off, and Eva (my fav G3 clone) at 60%. I could love it even more and get Eva at a ridiculous price, what with $10 off and combining the Valentines 50% off G3 items with the G3 female morph sets. I've even hatched a plan with the 7% Gift Card offer and a 3 month PC+ membership to save (spend) even more (whilst shopping in the PC+ dept at 50% off (and the rest)).
But no. Not with DRM on the cards. I won't risk investing in the G3 line part ways through when the rest of it may be encrypted / controlled.
It could have been a cracking weekend affair. But instead it looks like it might soon be all over between us.
I loved the 80% off Generation4 and spent a lot (a lot for me, anyway) ... with only needing two items of the whole selection, I got that requirement easily (without having to tie my brain in knots with buy this and get 7% off there, then you can get the other one for ...).
I don't stop buying, I just don't buy/add freebies to my cart that are encrypted.
Heh. I just bought at the same sale! Some things have been in my wishlist but never on sale. There aren't any more "must haves" in my wishlist, though. Just a lot of "nice to haves". We'll see.
This makes a lot of sense to me...
On the topic of being heard, feedback, and buying/not buying things...
The offers that come with buying the Girl 7 Pro Bundle sound ridiculously good. The products are great, a whole lot more of them than usual appeal to me and are worth the price to me. Unfortunately my finances for the next month or so aren't really co-operating with that. So I find myself not purchasing great content, not out of protest, but because of something beyond Daz's control - which I have no real way to give feedback about.
Maybe you don't care about each individual's reasons for buying or not buying your products, but I'd hope you do care about knowing if your sales strategies are working or not.
My thread got shut down and referred to here because I asked a simple question. There are 59 pages here and I still can't find the answer in the midst of all the heated conversation. Can someone pleeeeease just answer my question? Some have said that Daz is going to require all new products sold in the store to be encrypted and other have said Daz originals for sure but PA products will have the choice. Could someone please clear this up for me? I have asked a couple of vendors privately and I have received completely different answers.
It's suspected that everything will be encrypted in the future (except textures, etc.) and that PAs don't get a say, but no one actually knows (at least there's been no public announcement.)
The most accurate answer to date - we don't know. All we can do is wait and see.
Jaebea- I can't answer that, but I have a question for you. Can I hug your avatar? The cutest thing EVER.
It wasn't that your thread was singled out...it is been announced, several times, that all the discussion on the matter should be in the already established threads. All the new ones get merged or redirected to this one or the other 4.9 thread, depending on what they are about.
Which is better...59 pages of info or 85 different threads on basically the same subject?
If they should really encrypt all DOs, making them only available via Daz Connect, they'll lose me as a customer. After my 'very special' experience with DIM, which made a mess on my Mac, I stay away from all DAZ installation systems. As long as I am mentally able to manage a manual install I'll do it. I don't like to have someone bustle around on my hard drive, dropping things where I don't want to put them.
Its interesting to see that The Girl 7 (a new Daz base figure!) releases with a whole bunch of new products today and not one item amongst them is encrypted or Connect-only.
Could it be that Daz are thinking twice about this whole encryption thing, or are they just being ridiculously cautious about rolling it out?
I would've thought they'd be really keen to protect their base figures...
While we must assiduously avoid speculatory speculation, I'm going to go with cautionary. My expectation would be that there would have been a massive uproar if the figure itself was encrypted, but wouldn't have been surprised if the extras had been. Maybe tomorrow with the extra extras that tend to follow a character release.
As much as I don't want the main figures encrypted, one would think that they do need more encrypted content out to test properly.
Yeah, but if you're not even going to use encryption to protect your most popular base figures, then what the hell is the point of it?
As a wild guess, I'd suggest that their figure bundles are their biggest sellers so while they might be the main targets for encrpytion, they're also the ones they're most loathe to apply it to. If I was to do a cautious roll out, I'd slowly encrypt freebies and extra addons to characters, and then when the next generation comes out everything would be encrypted. Whether that's what they'll actually do, who knows.
I could have sworn that back when 4.9 was in beta, and during the initial upset over Daz connect, it was mentioned the plan was to eventually make all new releases Connect Only. But that was months ago, and who know now.
If that were the case then it would suggest that they're more concerned about customer reactions impacting negatively on sales than they are about piracy. And if that were the case then it should be suggesting to them that perhaps DRM was a bad idea.
But thats some big IFs.
Yeah, I have no idea. It's been said more than once that nothing they're doing adds up.
Yup. So they've annoyed a section of their customer base (maybe an insignificant one, who knows) and pirates are still (in all likelihood) getting hold of their most valuable products anyway. Feels like a lose-lose.
Such suggestions have a short shelf-life.
These "buy something now, get discounts on future things" type sales seem really unappealing when there is no garuntee on whether or not the future items (The Guy, March Madness sales items) will be Connect only.
Vendors definitely have no say in DO stuff, because they've sold them outright and have no say in ANYTHING related to those products. Whether stuff sold under a vendor's name will allow vendors to have a say in Encrypted-only... I'm not sure.
I assume that, provided Daz decides DRM is good, eventually all new stuff will be DRM. I assume that because think about their logic -- they want to prevent piracy of their content and think customers will (eventually) come to see it as a good. Why wouldn't they go all-DRM (for Daz content, anyway)? After all, anything not protected runs the risk of piracy.
Now, having said that, even if you assume the best about DRM, there's still a transition period where vocal objectors are stomping angrily and people are getting used to the idea. Even if DRM is nothing but good, it makes sense to carefully and cautiously roll it out over time.
So it just makes sense for them not to leap all the way to DRM yet.
Thanks for the answers, even if its not the one I wanted. If we don't know, we don't know. I didn't really feel singled out when my "thread door" was slammed shut, I just didn't appreciate the way it was handled. And Novica, kitties alway need hugs!!
Yeah, the lack of clarity about the future direction of Daz and DRM is one of the things that makes shopping here now so unappealing.
I've been critical; I don't like the DRM, but Daz is entitled to try it out; I object to how it's been handled and how it continues to be handled. That is what has affected my buying habits. Done differently I'd still likely be buying stuff, just carefully avoiding the DRMd items. Connect wouldn't have appealed to me but is easily avoided.